Friday, November 11, 2011

Leaders from farmer organizations from all over the state, trading unions, lawyers, human rights activists, members of several political groups working in farming sector and concerned citizens have voiced their concern in the roundtable organized by Safe Food Alliance and Coalition for GM Free India in Chennai.

Photos from the Round table and Press Meet.

Press Release

“FARM & FOOD
ACTIVISTS DEMAND SCRAPPING OF BRAI BILL 2011:

Ask State Govt to
raise its voice against the Bill and protect farmers’ interests – Seek
disallowing of GM crop field trials in the state”

Chennai, November 11, 2011: Farmers’ leaders from all over Tamil
Nadu, cutting across various affiliations, demanded that the Union Government
should scrap the BRAI (Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India) Bill 2011,
stating that it was a deeply flawed Bill. They asked the state government of
Tamil Nadu to assert its constitutional authority over Agriculture, which this
Bill seeks to violate. Farm activists wanted the state government and all TN
Members of Parliament to raise objections against the BRAI Bill’s introduction
in the winter session. They also urged the state government to ensure that no
open-air field trials of GM crops are allowed in Tamil Nadu.

“The
BRAI Bill is clearly against the interests of farmers and consumers and seeks
to create a single-window fast-track clearance system for profit-hungry
corporations. This is a Bill that is unconstitutional and undemocratic. It
seeks to bypass the Right To Information Act in its intent to uphold the
commercial interests of seed companies. The state government will not be
allowed to have any say in the matter and this is clearly a violation of the
federal polity enshrined in the Indian Constitution, wherein Agriculture is a
State Subject”, said Sridhar Radhakrishnan of the Coalition for a GM-Free
India.

Speaking
at the end of a Round Table on BRAI Bill, Vettavalam Manikandan of Tamizhaga
Vyavasayigal Sangam said, “The state government in recent months has taken the
progressive steps of repealing the TNSAC Act and withdrawing a budgetary
provision to promote Bt cotton in the state. The CM has also reminded in the
National Development Council meeting that Agriculture is after all a State
subject. In the same spirit, we hope the CM will write to the Centre to stop
this draconian Bill”, he said.

Vellaiyan
of Tamil Nadu Vanigar Sangam said that the BRAI Bill is against the bottomline
for regulatory regime recommended by a Task Force on Agricultural Biotechnology
which had mooted the idea of an independent regulator in the first instance!
The bottomline was stated to be “the
safety of the environment, the well being of farming families, the ecological
and economic sustainability of farming systems, the health and nutrition
security of consumers, safeguarding of home and external trade and the
biosecurity of the nation. We need a biosafety protection statute and not
BRAI”, he asserted.

“We
would like the government to make the Tamil Nadu Agriculture University
accountable to it and the farming communities in the state; very often, the
TNAU is seen to be acting in the interests of profiteering corporations in the
way they promote GM technology and take up numerous trials, despite enormous
scientific evidence proving the dangers of transgenic technology. We know that
in the case of the ABSP II project for the development of Bt brinjal varieties,
several legal provisions have been violated and the National Biodiversity
Authority has decided to proceed against the violators; an investigation is
needed into TNAU’s partnerships with various corporations too”, said Sheelu
Francis of Tamil Nadu Women’s Collective.

Dr V
Suresh, National Secretary of PUCL said that the BRAI Bill is against our
Constitution. It is a part of the twenty first century global effort to
colonise Indian agriculture by making food as a primary weapon and hand over
our agriculture and food systems to profiteering corporations, thereby
affecting our food sovereignty and food self sufficiency carefully built over
sixty years of independent India.

“Tamil
Nadu’s farmers have pioneered organic farming in the entire country; however,
this organic farming movement in the state is being jeopardized now, because
the state government is yet to take a firm stand against GMOs in general and
BRAI Bill in particular, and given that GM technology is diametrically opposite
in its approach and results, to organic farming! We urge the state government
to come up with an organic farming policy for the state and stop the onslaught
of GM on our farmers here, since we have safer and sustainable technologies to
offer. We urge the government to not give any permission for open air field
trials in the state, given that the GM technology is a living, imprecise,
irreversible and unpredictable technology”, said Selvam Ramaswamy of Tamil Nadu
Organic Farmers Federation. He cited the example of several other states that
have said NO to field trials.

Sharing
the findings of a report she compiled on “A Decade of Bt cotton in Tamil Nadu”
on the occasion, Kavitha Kuruganti of ASHA (Alliance for Sustainable &
Holistic Agriculture” pointed out that official records point out that yields
of cotton have been fluctuating in the state despite major expansion of Bt
cotton in the cotton cultivation in Tamil Nadu, that insecticide usage has not
come down as predicted, that cost on pesticides was quite low to begin with,
bringing to question the very rationale for the introduction of Bt technology
in the state, that cost of cultivation has no declining trends to exhibit etc.
“While this is not based on any primary study, the report is based on official
figures; this data hopefully will guide
the state government in not being misled by the massive publicity that the
biotech industry generates by spending its resources and hopefully, the Chief
Minister will see the real picture for what it is”, she said.

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